A rubber wood processing plant of Viet Nam Rubber Group. — Photo vietnamrubbergroup.com

Viet Nam Rubber Group must strive to increase its annual revenue to reach US$10 billion, given its advantage of owning more than 400,000 hectares of agricultural and forestry land, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said at a meeting with the group on Thursday.

Focus should be placed on diversifying products made from rubber wood, so that the group could participate deeply in the wood processing industry which could create a new source of revenue from the export of wooden products, Hue said.

Hue said that the wood processing industry and wood products manufacturing was a potential sector for the Viet Nam Rubber Group, adding that expanding production into the wood processing industry rather than in latex production would help the group to reduce reliance on the fluctuations of latex prices in the global market.

Viet Nam Rubber Group must set the target of reaching revenue of $10 billion in the future, Hue asked.

He noted that the group also needed to enhance the management on its agricultural and forestry land to ensure efficiency as well as speeding up the development of a master plan for production restructuring after privatisation.

Viet Nam Rubber Group was privatised and operated as a joint stock company since June 1, 2018. The Committee for Management of State Capital was now the representative of the State capital ownership at the group after receiving it from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In 2018, Viet Nam Rubber Group earned revenue of VND4.5 trillion ($2 billion).

Rubber production generated an estimated profit of VND100 billion per year for the group while rubber wood processing more than VND1 trillion and industrial zone development VND500 billion. —VNS